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The Collation

The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog

Print or manuscript? Civilité type in early modern England
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Print or manuscript? Civilité type in early modern England

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Author
Heather Wolfe

Have you ever received a fundraising letter in the mail that looks handwritten, or has a “handwritten” postscript or post-it note? This is an attempt, of course, to make the letter feel more personal. The recipient of the request is supposed to be…

So how do you find symbols in signature marks?
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So how do you find symbols in signature marks?

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Erin Blake Sarah Werner

Sarah: In my last post, I showed some examples of books that use symbols in signature marks. But how did I find these books and how might you find more examples? It’s one thing to search for books printed in…

The symbols of signature marks
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The symbols of signature marks

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Author
Sarah Werner

I’ve written before about what sort of information we can learn from studying signature marks, and Goran wrote recently about the use of Latin abbreviations to indicate the gathering. So I thought the time has come to look at some of the…

Identifying a leather bookplate
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Identifying a leather bookplate

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Author
Sarah Werner

As became clear in the robust conversation around this month’s crocodile mystery, what we’re looking at is a leather bookplate—a circular, good-tooled leather bookplate stamped with the initials “E. H.” and a rose. While the object itself might have been…

"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": July 2014
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"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": July 2014

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Author
The Collation

Just in time for the holiday weekend, a new crocodile mystery! your July mystery   This month’s crocodile mystery will be, for many of you, obvious as a category of object. So there’s an extra challenge: what else can you…

William Dethick and the Shakespeare Grants of Arms
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William Dethick and the Shakespeare Grants of Arms

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Author
Nigel Ramsay

A guest post by Nigel Ramsay For many visitors to the Folger’s Heraldry exhibit, “Symbols of Honor,” the stars will be the three original draft grants on paper of Shakespeare’s coats of arms. These belong to the English heralds’ long-established…

An argent lion rampant: coats of arms in 17th-c. books
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An argent lion rampant: coats of arms in 17th-c. books

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Author
Goran Proot

In recent months, the Folger Shakespeare Library added a rare emblem book to its holdings, a thin quarto bound in pasteboards holding 24 unnumbered leaves . The emblem book presents itself as a “new year’s gift” containing 13 engravings: one coat…

Let's make a model!
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Let's make a model!

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Heather Wolfe Jana Dambrogio

Co-written by Heather Wolfe and Jana Dambrogio In 2010, Jana Dambrogio and I were thinking independently about slits and stabs in early modern letters. Jana, after having had made many models of the letters of Tomaso di Livieri from the…

Fun in cataloging, or, the mysterious 12mo
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Fun in cataloging, or, the mysterious 12mo

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Author
Deborah J. Leslie

On occasion, interesting and unusual aspects of books, manuscripts, and prints catch the attention of the cataloger at work on them. One such item was written up by Sarah Werner last December in “‘Tis the season for almanacs.” The office of the…

Hidden notes, "bibliographic nightmares," and STC call numbers
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Hidden notes, "bibliographic nightmares," and STC call numbers

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Author
Erin Blake

Sometimes when keyword searching Hamnet, the results include mystery matches: when you Ctrl-V to find the word you’re looking for on the page, it’s not there. That’s because some fields only display on the “MARC view” tab. Usually the information isn’t worth…

Four states of Shakespeare: the Droeshout portrait
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Four states of Shakespeare: the Droeshout portrait

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Author
Sarah Werner

So the mysterious eye of this month’s crocodile belongs to no other than Shakespeare, as some readers immediately recognized: Droeshout’s engraving of Shakespeare on the title page of the First Folio More specifically, it is Shakespeare’s left right eye as depicted…

"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": June 2014
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"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": June 2014

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Author
The Collation

For your June crocodile mystery, something to cast your eye over: I spy with my little eye, this crocodile mystery What is this, how many pertinent details can you point to, and why might it matter? Leave your guesses below and come…

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